


The Unwed Brood

by BepisPerfected



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Hive (Destiny) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29558124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BepisPerfected/pseuds/BepisPerfected
Summary: A Hive Knight seeks to sire a grand army, and is met with the complications of devotion as such.
Kudos: 8





	The Unwed Brood

I am only as sharp as the edge of my blade. I am only defined by the strength I embody. I wished to rend the world! I wished to be strong! I think I regret it.

My time should have been spent as all knights' are, sparing and honing my edge. Continuing our glorious campaign of domination across the stars! But not long ago, I became distracted. Preoccupied. It tugged at me, gnawed at my brain, despite all my success.

I knew of my greatness; it was self-apparent. Centuries of war had served me well and my ancient armor was my pride. My brothers and sisters in arms both hated and saluted me, as they should. My time-weathered aegis has become fused to my bones and its dense-packed hull could not be pierced by neither bullet nor blade. That my subordinates seethed so strongly for my end is to prove my worth. They aspired to kill me and be better, for they were jealous of my splendor and I am the greatest thing they knew.

I am deserving of all my praise, to be sure. Yet still my dissatisfaction persisted.

My acolytes bowed to me and ran from my cleaver. They were still young and had not yet chosen their morphs. For now they would observe my fine art of my butchering and learn to weave murder like a tapestry. Their service was to be expected, but I became bored of it. I had no value in them beyond their tithings of destruction. I went to the arena and ran my edge through a hundred hatchling thrall, to help me think. I pondered my predicament as the acolytes of others ran to challenge me, and it was only upon planting my cleaver through the skull of the last that I finally understood why I had lost interest in my own followers. They were not _my_ acolytes, merely the children of another who had entered into my service. I realized that I wanted a brood of my own.

That should be no problem, I first thought! I will simply find a wizard worthy of my conviction and we will create legions of our spawn. The Worms themselves would marvel at them! I ventured to the summoning pits, where the witches experiment with death and the Deep, to procure for myself a suitable mother for my brood. I found them floating about, hissing and screeching as all witches do, calling to their acolyte servants to bring them materials or corpses or crystals. I frowned at them, being older than me and already having countless generations carrying their name. I moved on and found myself at a large door guarded by two fellow knights. They were smaller than me, as most are, but dutiful. One stopped my march.

“Why do you seek entrance to this place?” He boomed.

“I seek a wizard, newly raised, for my own purposes.”

He grunted and looked to his companion. “This is an unholy place. What Worm guides you?”

“I follow Yul, the Honest Worm our God, whose lies define our being.” I replied. “Now open this door, or I will send your deaths to him!”

They parted and released the seals that chained the passage shut, allowing me to stride deeper into the temple. Finally I came to a huge shrine to our King, the great Navigator. I recognized it immediately, though it did not hold my attention. Before it was a circle of young witches performing a ritual of sacrifice. I scanned the group, inspecting the intricacy of their bones and the age of their robes. I listened to their song, hanging upon the inflection of their voices, until I settled on one. She was not the tallest in the group, nor was she the eldest, but she held the gaze of all three of my eyes. Her shrieks flowed together in a perfect melody. Her face was twisted in a visage of pure beauty. I knew immediately that she would be mine!

I watched from afar until at last their ritual had concluded. The witches scattered but she did not leave my sight. I followed her to a large terrace, overlooking a deep pit whose bottom was obscured by fog. She stopped for a moment at the edge, ruminating on some unknown thought. That was when I approached her.

“I noticed your song was much clearer than those of your ritual sisters. You are by far the most talented out of all of them.”

She turned around to face me and again I was struck by her beauty. It was clear she had very recently made her transition from acolyte to wizard, as the horns on the side of her head had barely grown and her robes lacked a single tattered edge. Her smile was all bared teeth, jagged and gorgeous.

“You flatter me.” She said, her elegant voice like claws scraping on slate. “I aspire to be a Deathsinger one day.”

I bowed my head. “I heard lethality in each word. No doubt your death song will strike at the hearts of all who hear it, for even now your voice pieces mine!”

The witch cocked her head and smiled. “Now now, surely you did not pursue me here just for needless compliments.”

“No, indeed not. I am Verzok, the Rending Edge, and I will not conceal my motives. Your grace is alluring beyond compare, and I wish for you to mother my broods!”

She let out an ear-splitting laugh, so high that even her shoulders raised to give space to her lungs. Her body bent over as she cackled and it took her a moment to regain her composure. I did not understand what was funny.

“Worms be praised!” She finally said. “Had I that power, I would not be confined to pits as these. Verzok, you charm me! I find your company delightful! I am Ur-Alak, the Ambitious Claws. Come, Sister, let us kill something and enjoy it!”

In a moment it had become clear, my stupidity laid bare. Centuries of conquest had caused me to forget myself. Eons of war with my fellow warriors had blurred us to equivalence. Now I remembered the harsh truth of when I had first adopted my morph. I had wished to rend the world! I had wished to be strong! I rejected the mother jelly of my fellow sisters for strength!

Knights did not draw the distinction between male and female, for all that mattered to us was our skill and fervor. Such things are meaningless in the face of oblivion. But alas! How can I raise a brood when I am not a mother! I lack the equipment and the means to gain it, rendered low by my own hubris!

For ages I have resigned myself to follow the desires of Ur-Alak. I cannot shake her intoxicating beauty from my head, but misery permeates me! Thankfully, I believe she took my serious proposition as a comedic attempt at more flattery. I knew she would spurn me if she knew the truth, and I cannot bear her hatred. Rather I have stood beside her in silent contempt of myself. I aide her in all ways, protect her from all threats. My devotion is absolute, but I despise it.

I watched as she laid her spawn. At first it sickened me, thinking she had lent herself to someone else. But the more I thought the less sense that made. I had not let her out of my sight for more than a moment in over a century, nor had she seemed to find companionship in another Lnight. Finally I remembered wizards do not need to mate to lay a brood, only to have sons.

Ur-Alak approached me after her first batch of thrall had ingested their larval worms. “Verzok, my loyal blade! Too long have you served me without servants of your own. My children are ravening and you are starved for death. Take them and kill, my humble protector. Let us feast together on the desolation they provide.”

“As you desire.” I stated.

It unnerved me to leave her side, but my own worm had grown voracious and needed to be sated. It squirmed within me and compelled me away. I gathered her children and raised my blade, slicing an opening in the fabric of space to somewhere else. We poured through and slaughtered all who we could find. How I revelled in the sound of screams once more! How I roared with ecstasy as their blood bathed me! How my worm was fed with death! My lust for murder had returned with a vengeance, and how I had forgotten it. When at last I returned to my dear Ur-Alak, I brought enough devastation for us to gorge ourselves!

Again and again this cycle repeated. In time her thrall grew to be acolytes, and we celebrated them with massacre. We too grew, larger and stronger as the centuries rolled by. Her cunning was a testament to the brilliance of her mind. I honed my blade upon it, and it became sharper. The slaughter we imposed upon the universe was that of purity, the great proof of self-evident truth! To kill something is to prove you are better, and oh how much better we had become! We laughed and we fed, but she was not as jovial as me. I wondered why. What could have upset her, and why was I filled with happiness by comparison?

I found her once again, staring into the pit where we had first met.

“Ur-Alak, your mind seems plagued.”

She did not look at me, but continued to stare down into the abyss.

“I hate to see you doubtful. What troubles you?”

A noise not dissimilar to a groan escaped her, but it was filled with melancholy. “Verzok, I count you as my closest confidant. Nearly a millennium has passed since we first stood on this spot, and not one secret has been kept between us. And yet, I find myself unwilling to speak my mind to you.”

I dropped to one knee. “No apology I can offer can express my sorrow. Whatever I have done to upset you, it was never my intention. I beg of you, allow me some way to remedy myself in your eyes!”

“Stand Verzok. You have done nothing wrong. Rather, I could not have asked for a more perfect companion. I fear the conflict resides entirely within myself.”

“What then? If there is conflict, I will be its resolution!”

“I doubt you can, not for this.” She shook her head, forcing herself to articulate the innumerable thoughts buzzing within. “I am approaching my asymptote.”

I frowned. “I do not understand.”

“My skills, my power. They are approaching a hurdle that may be impassable. I dread the thought of stagnation, but I find the avenue forward even more disdainful.”

“What, what is it? What must be done that you hate so deeply?”

She growled and gritted her teeth. “To become greater, I must breed a sacrifice for the Worms our gods. I must raise the flesh of one of my own and tend it like a garden, nurturing it until it is swollen and ripe for their consumption. I need to create an abominable ogre.” Ur-Alak spat the words. “And for that, I need a son.”

The feeling of a grievous gash ravaged my chest, something no armor or age could protect me against, but I knew ever since she laid her first egg that sooner or later this was going to happen.

“If that is all, then the solution is easy. We will find you a knight stronger than stone and sharper than words. I will see to it that you will have a son.”

She grimaced and I felt pain in her expression. “That is the problem. I have already found a knight as such. And though I abhor the thought of being close with anyone else, she can give me no child.”

A sudden understanding consumed me. I had achieved my aspirations and thus doomed hers. I had longed to raise a brood with Ur-Alak, and so I had. Her acolytes that followed me had been raised as though they were my own flesh. In all but name they were my brood, and I had committed myself to her for this purpose. However, our bond had gone both ways. Our informal closeness had doomed us both to mutual attachment. How like a parasite I had become! But parasites are not always malignant, as it is with worms and Worms.

“Remember for me, beautiful Ur-Alak. I stood here once and proclaimed that I wished to raise legions with you. My commitment since has not been purely of loyalty, but of devotion. I refuse to end it now.”

“You must also remember, sweet Verzok. I told you that were it in my ability to grant us this wish, I would have left these pits. Yet here we remain.”

“Then I will not ask that power from you.” I stated gesturing to the black chasm. “In our Worms, all things are possible. I will venture through any realm and slay any beast to gain their audience. I will feel no fear, as I will stow your voice in my heart and your intent in my mind. When I return, I will have adopted a new shape. If I die before then, I will gift my death to you and the freedom associated with it. Ur-Alak, your claws have fulfilled my ambitions. Now, I must return the favor.”

I am only as sharp as the edge I hone my blade upon. I am only defined by my devotion I embody. I wished to raise a family! I wished to be the progenitor of greatness! I will not regret it.


End file.
